2016

Even though I was in awful shape in 2016 I was still stubborn and foohardy...so I spent a year running down whatever fitness base I had left. It's probably the reason I started getting interested in art. 

In January, I ran the Bandera 50k. I didn't take any pictures. I didn't do too badly, because by then I'd only been coughing a few months and was still in pretty good shape.  

In March, I ran the Puerto Rico marathon. 

That's blood on the ribbon. 

I didn't take pictures of the PR course, but I started taking pictures around this time...during the trip. 

After the marathon, I passed out. My glasses cut next to my eye when I fell. It turns out that when you get stitches right next to your eye you get s he'll of a shiner. 

I ran two half marathons soon after, the same weekend. 

In June I ran the North Umpqua Trail (NUT) 50k, otherwise known as Now I Hate Oregon 50k.  It is an all-uphill run through mosquitos and poison oak. It is also breathtakingly beautiful. 

I drew a picture of my legs after this trail marathon. That's a picture of Poison Oak in the upper left corner. And that's why I hate Oregon. 

I was doing a lot of pencil drawings about this time. This is one I did of the Oregon coast during the trip to do the NUT. 

I took this picture at the finish line of the NUT50k

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In July, I finished the Tahoe Rim Trail 50k. 

Sweet Baboo started the 100 miler, but ran into some problems and only finished 50 miles. He's running the 100 again today.

I did this painting of a picture I took of the course.  

In August, I tried to do the La Luz. It's a 9 mile climb up to 10,400 feet. I was so slow people were worried and wondering where I was. But I finished. I painted this picture later, with watercolor, Pitt pen, and micron pen. 

In the fall, finished the Morgantown marathon. Easily the hardest road marathon I've ever done. Finishing directly and accepting a finishing medal behind me was a woman who admitted she "probably" cut the course when I passed her the second time. I write the race director three times. They never wrote back, and never removed this local from the results. Ergo, it's cool to cheat at the Morgantown marathon. I guess.

This is the only picture from the course.  



In October I completed the Cloudsplitter 50k, which rivals Tahoe for the hardest 50k I've ever done. 

It's also probably the most beautiful. This 50k, which has over 9000 feet of climbing and rubs along a rudgeline that comprises the Kentucky/Virginia border, I would so do again. 

It was beautiful. The kind of beautiful that fed my soul and filled me with hope for all the wonder that ultrarunning offers. 

Experiences and memories like this kept me going through some pretty hopeless times. 

It was so beautiful, I had to make a slide show. Enjoy. 

Athena Diaries: The Cloudsplitter

(Above:Birch Knob, Kentucky. )

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A week later, I did the New York marathon.  I got in on the lottery. Sweet Baboo ran it with me. Of course, I was appallingly slow. But it was a great time. 




And, well, that's it for 2016. I spent the year not able to train but doing things anyway, and wearing down completely. 

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